School is back in session, and the Prince George school district is projecting a slight reduction in its enrolment count.
There are about 100 fewer students in School District 57 heading into the first week of classes, and School District 57 superintendent Jameel Aziz says that follows the trend observed in most BC municipalities.
“We were expecting about 13,150, and based on very preliminary numbers we expect to be there, but not everybody makes the first day back and we’ll have some clearer numbers as Thursday and Friday (Sept. 4 and 5) come forward,” said Aziz.
“We do have declining enrolment — not dramatic, just a slow trickle of students declining each year, where we’re having more Grade 12s leave than kindergarten students coming in. Those things can change based on all sorts of factors, and so we remain optimistic. But we’re not looking at big drops in overall enrolment across our district.
“At one point, we were as many as 14,500 students, so we certainly have lost more than 1,000 students over the last decade. But except for the Lower Mainland, that’s pretty consistent with most other regions of the province. Everybody’s population is down.”
Aziz said while the district plans ahead to have the resources and infrastructure in place to accommodate all students, slight reductions in the count will reduce provincial funding. The government will provide $9,015 for each K-12 full-time enrolled student registered in SD 57 schools in 2025–26. A 100-student drop will reduce the budget by $901,500.
While teacher shortages remain problematic in much of the province, Aziz says there’s good news on that front. At the start of September 2023, there were 96 teacher vacancies unfilled in the Prince George district. That dropped to 47 in 2024, and as of Tuesday there were just 13 vacant teaching positions.
“I’m really pleased with where we’re at right now, and we know as the month unfolds we will get those unfilled positions taken care of,” said Aziz.
The school district can apply to have an uncertified teacher take over a classroom, pending ministry approval. Aziz says uncertified teachers are more common in Mackenzie and McBride. He said the district is working with applicants who have university degrees to lessen the hurdles of achieving their teaching credentials.
“Many of them would like to be able to do that, but they can’t really afford to take two years off to go back to school full-time, so we’re trying to find some other possibilities and other avenues for them to get their teaching credentials while still being able to work and still be at home,” he said.
SD 57 is introducing online dispatch this year for its teachers on call, replacing the phone call system formerly in place to let substitute teachers know their daily placements when a teacher phones in sick. Aziz says similar systems have been in place for decades in other school districts, and the technology efficiencies will free up staff for other duties.
Primary students (K–Grade 3) in the Prince George district will now all have access to iPads as a teaching tool, and Chromebook laptops will be available to students in Grades 4–12. The district will lease those machines rather than purchase them to ensure they are updated every three or four years to keep up with technological advances.
Province-wide guidelines are being created for staff to mandate the use of artificial intelligence and ChatGPT generative AI in classrooms, and Aziz said those regulations will be unveiled later this month.
“I’d say we’re a little bit ahead of the game in BC as opposed to other provinces in Canada, recognizing that it is something kind of like the internet when it came — and kind of like computers when they came,” said Aziz, now in his third year as SD 57 superintendent. “People hope it’s going to go away, but it’s not going to go away. We just want to make sure we’re in front of those things.”
As far as facilities, the district’s priority wish-list item is the replacement of D.P. Todd Secondary School. Opened in 1978, the building is too small to support the current student population, was built with windowless classrooms, has a small gymnasium, and lacks large gathering spaces such as a lunchroom to serve the daily needs of students. The cost estimate for that replacement is $131.5 million.
Later this month, the district is opening a new 62-space child care facility in Mackenzie in the building that used to serve as Mackenzie Elementary School. Aziz says the district plans to repurpose some of the shuttered schools in Prince George for day care centres, one of which will be at the former Austin Road Elementary School.
The three-year contract between the BC Teachers’ Federation and the province expired June 30. Local bargaining concluded in the spring, and the BCTF plans to resume sessions later this month with the BC Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA) to try to work out a new two-year collective agreement. Workload, salary, and recruitment/retention are the most prominent issues for the province’s 51,000 public school teachers.
The contract for the province’s 40,000 public school support staff also ended in June. Talks for a Provincial Framework Agreement between CUPE and BCPSEA began in April and are scheduled to resume this fall. Wages, increased working hours, workplace safety, public child care, and professional development were highlighted as issues in previous negotiations.
Aziz said local CUPE bargaining for support staff will begin once the provincial bargaining has been settled.
SD57 will unveil its new logo on Tuesday, Sept. 9, at the district office on Ferry Avenue.
The SD57 board approved the closure of Giscome Elementary School, and it was closed permanently at the end of June, resulting in a $265,000 budget saving. That leaves the district with 39 schools (31 elementary, eight high schools) it operates in Prince George, Mackenzie, Hixon, Valemount and McBride.
The district passed a $213-million budget in May that will provide $180.7 million in operating funds, $22 million in special purpose funds targeted to specific projects, and close to $10 million in capital funds. School districts are not allowed to operate with a budget deficit.
“We’re in pretty good stead. We had a small surplus at the end of last year, and we made some plans to spend those surplus dollars on some one-time items. It can’t be spent for ongoing costs because we don’t know if we’ll be in the same financial position next year,” said Aziz.
“The whole trade and tariff uncertainties are posing some uncertainties for government, and we’re making sure our belt is pretty tight. We don’t want to do any forecasting of anything that will put us into difficulties. But at the same time, we know that public health and public education are probably the priorities for government in terms of support.”
